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Saturday, January 25, 2014

Everyone needs a light bulb moment from time to time...

Although as light bulb moments go, I'm not sure that putting a lampshade on your head is a particularly good idea.

Fortunately, however, that blue lampshade is now surplus to requirements, as the council were kind enough to send over a couple of workmen this week to replace our energy-saving bathroom light with one so powerful that we now need to wear sunglasses to brush our teeth. Where we once basked in the warm orange glow of low-wattage light bulb, we're now taking showers in the blinding white light of a Death Star tractor beam.

Worse still is that it took them all morning to fit, and they only gave us 24 hours notice. Lisa and Toby were held prisoner in the living room on Thursday while two council contractors spent five hours in the bathroom. Which is usually Lisa's job. But on the plus side, they've also fitted a brand new extractor fan. So it's not only bright in there, it's freezing.

The good news, however, is that our upgraded bathroom is now fully protected from water damage for another year, thanks to the sterling service offered by Churchill Insurance. We've previously paid them around a hundred pounds a year for our home contents insurance, but after The Great Flood of 2013, we weren't entirely happy with the service we received (although they paid up in the end), so when they wrote to me a couple of weeks ago to say they were putting up our annual premium to £145, I decided not to renew.

The insurance was due to run out on Thursday, so on Tuesday of this week, Lisa phoned them to cancel the automatic renewal. They asked her why, so she lied and said we'd had a better offer elsewhere. At which point they put her on hold, came back two minutes later, and said they could reduce the price to £86.

Now, I'm very grateful for that offer, obviously, but isn't that a bit like admitting that they were trying to con us with the £145 figure? If they can afford to offer us exactly the same policy for sixty pounds less, why did they pitch it at the higher price in the first place? Purely to fleece us, I'd suggest.

As an alternative, they offered us a price of £91 for an improved policy with half the excess, so we've gone for that. I still think they're conmen, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Anyhoo, I'm looking a lot happier now that we're insured...

I think that's Nick Hewer in the background. He's pretending not to look, but I'm convinced he's following me around and reporting back to Lord Sugar.

That photo was taken this morning at Funplex, an indoor play centre in Brighton, which was our first stop on a whirlwind weekend of fun, laughter and crushing exhaustion. Lisa and I might be social lepers, but fortunately Amelie's flying the flag for friendship by getting herself invited to just about every event going. This morning's soiree was a nursery reunion at Funplex, which gave her the chance to get together with all her old pre-school friends. Although the moment she thought there might be food on offer, she was quite happy to sit with her family...

Well, I say happy. She actually looks a bit grumpy. Anyhoo, that's Lisa trying to do a shadow puppet of a dog. And here's Amelie shoving her brother over a wall...

I had to lock her up for that...

Is it me, or do they both look like they've got moustaches..?

Anyhoo, the beauty of these indoor play centres is that you can allow your children to enjoy a bit of mixed martial arts cage-fighting, no-holds-barred wrestling, and bare-knuckle boxing in a colourful padded arena which minimises the chances of catastrophic spinal injury and multiple fractures...

Although it doesn't eliminate the risk entirely. In the end though, it was Lisa and I who were beaten into submission. After two and a quarter hours of swinging, running, jumping and getting stuck at the top of the climbing frame (that was me), we called it a day and went home for lunch. Before heading straight back out for Amelie's musical theatre class. I'll be picking her up shortly, taking her to McDonalds, and then going shopping. I wouldn't mind, but we've got even more planned for tomorrow...